Hooper:

Christ sent to die for the world:

1) This scripture not only teaches us the knowledge of salvation, but also comforts us against all the assaults, subtleties, and crafts of the devil–that God would of his inestimable love rather suffer his only Son to die for the world, than all the world should perish. Remaining always, as he was, very¹ God immortal, he received the thing he was not, the mortal nature and true flesh of man, in which he died, as Peter saith, I Pet. iv. Irenaeus hath these godly words: “Christ was crucified and died, the Word submitting to be crucified and die.” The divine nature of Christ was not rent, or torn, or killed, but it obeyed the will of the Father. It gave place unto the displeasure and wrath of God, that the body of Christ might die. Being always equal with his Father, he could, if he had executed his divine power, have delivered his body from the tyranny of the Jews.

These words of Irenaeus wonderfully declare unto us what Christ is, and agree with Paul, (Phil, ii.) “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of a servant.” Seeing he was sent into the world to suffer this most cruel death and passion, he would do nothing that should be contrary to his vocation, but, with patience praying for his enemies, submitted himself unto the ignominy and contempt of the cross; suffering pains innumerable, without grudge or murmur against the holy will of his Father: his Godhead hiding itself, until the third day, when it restored the soul again unto the body, and caused it to rise with great triumph and glory, (Rom. i. Mat. xxviii. John xx. Luke xxiv. Mark xvi.) repeating the doctrine, which before his death he preached unto the world, that he was both king and lord, high bishop and priest, both of heaven and of earth. “All power is given unto me both in heaven and in earth: go, therefore, teach all nations” (Matt, xxviii.). John Hooper, “A Declaration of Christ and his Office,” in Writings of Dr. John Hooper (London: The Religious Tract Society, [1800s]), 19. [Some spelling modernized and underlining mine.]

Sins of the world:

1) Paul saith (Phil, ii.), that Christ humbled himself unto the death of the cross. (Heb. ii.) He was made partaker of a man’s mortal nature, that by death he might destroy him that had the empire and dominion of death, that is to say, the devil. John calls him the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. (John i.) All the sacrifices of the old law were figures and types of this only sacrifice, which was appointed by God, to die and to suffer the wrath and displeasure of God for the sin of man, as though he himself were a sinner, and had merited this displeasure. The greatness of this wrath, sorrow, confusion, ignominy, and contempt, neither angel nor man can express; his pains were so intolerable, and his passion so dolorous, his Deity so obedient with the Father’s will, that it was not only a sacrifice, but also a just recompense to satisfy for all the world solely and only, as Christ taught Nicodemus, John iii. as Paul, Heb. vii. viii. ix. x. Isa. liii. and so all the prophets and patriarchs. And such a sacrifice as once for all suffices, Heb. vii.

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Latimer:¹

Sins of the world:

1) Christ was sore tormented in his mankind, nothing in his Godhead.

Marry, I will tell you how. We must consider our Savior Christ two ways, one way in his manhood, another in his Godhead. Some places of scripture must be referred to his Deity, and some to his humanity. In his Godhead he suffered nothing; but now he made himself void of his Deity, as scripture saith, Cum esset in forma Dei, exinanivit seipsum, “Whereas he was in the form of God, he emptied himself of it, he did hide it, and used himself as though he had not had it.”He would not help himself with his Godhead; “he humbled himself with all obedience unto death, even to the death of the cross” this was in that he was man.

Christ was
accounted
the greatest
sinner in the
world, because
he took upon
him our sins.

He took upon him our sins: not the work of sin; I mean not so: not to do it, not to commit it; but to purge it, to cleanse it, to bear the stipend of it: and that way he was the great sinner of the world. He bare all the sin of the world on his back; he would become debtor for it.

Christ is the only Purgation of our sin.

Now to sustain and suffer the dolours² of death is not to sin: but he came into this world with his passion to purge our sins. Now this that he suffered in the garden is one of the bitterest pieces of all his passion: this fear of death was the bitterest pain that ever he abode, due to sin which he never did, but became debtor for us. All this he suffered for us; this he did to satisfy for our sins.

The notable
mercy of
Christ showing
to mankind.

It is much like as if I owed another man twenty thousand pounds, and should pay it out of hand, or else go to the dungeon of Ludgate; and when I am going to prison, one of my friends should come, and ask, “Whither goes this man?” and after he had heard the matter, should say, “Let me answer for him, I will become surety for him: yea, I will pay all for him.” Such a part played our Savior Christ with us. If he had not suffered this, I for my part should have suffered, according to the gravity and quantity of my sins, damnation.

The greater
the sin is, the
greater is
the pain.

For the greater the sin is, the greater is the punishment in hell. He suffered for you and me, in such a degree as is due to all the sins of the whole world. It was as if you would imagine that one man had committed all the sins since Adam: you may be sure he should be punished with the same horror of death, in such a sort as all men in the world should have suffered. Feign and put case, our Savior Christ had committed all the sins of the world; all that I for my part have done, all that you for your part have done, and that any man else hath done: if he had done all this himself, his agony that he suffered should have been no greater nor grievouser than it was.

His suffering
in the garden
was bitter
and painful.

This that he suffered in the garden was a portion, I say, of his passion, and one of the bitterest parts of it. And this he suffered for our sins, and not for any sins that he had committed himself: for all we should have suffered, every man according to his own deserts.

Why Christ
suffered such pains.

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Walker:

1)

Quest.

Is there any hope of deliverance, from this soul stain and guilt of sins, and from death, and all evil of wrath, which are the fruits and effects of it?

Answ.

There is no hope of deliverance in anything which man’s wit and reason can devise, or man by his art, skill, and power can perform. All creatures in the world can yield him no help. God only of his infinite mercy, free grace, love and kindness to mankind has from all eternity, ordained an all-sufficient Savior and Redeemer, even his only begotten Son, who immediately after man’s sin and fall, did undertake for man, stayed the execution of the sentence and punishment of death, and was promised to become the seed of the woman and by suffering death and all the punishments due to our nature, to redeem mankind from sin and death, and to destroy the Devil, who had the power of death, and to dissolve all his works [Heb. 2:14 and 1 Joh. 4:8.].

Quest.

Who is the Son of God, which did undertake to redeem man?

Answ.

It is the Lord Jesus Christ, who was first promised under the name of the seed of the woman, Gen. 3:15, which should break the serpents head, and afterward was promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, under the name of the blessed seed, in whom all the nations of the earth should be blessed [Gen. 12:8.]. And to David, and by the prophets, by the name of Messiah, that is the anointed Savior of the seed of David. And at last in the fullness of the time, when he was made flesh, took our nature upon him, and was born of a virgin, did bear the name of Jesus; and is now preached and made known to the world, under the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.  George Walker, The Key of Saving Knowledge, Opening out of the holy Scripture, the right way, and straight passage to Eternal life (London: Printed by Tho. Badger. 1641), 36-37. [Some reformatting; some spelling modernized; marginal references cited inline; original italics removed; and underlining mine.]

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Ford:

Obj. True, we have the Gospel preached to us, and plenty of precious means (so you call them), to know Christ: But to what purpose, so long as we are one way or other shut out, so as not one, nor all, nor any of these means shall ever have any effect on us for our salvation? For this purpose they allege,

1. An absolute and irrecoverable decree of God, that shuts out more than shall be received in.

2. The narrowing of Christ’s death by some, as to the extent of it, that a great many may well think themselves incapable of any benefit by it.

3. The lamentable estate of all men since Adam’s fall, under an invincible inability, to recover themselves from that estate, more than a dead man has to raise and lift himself out of the dust.

These are the stumbling blocks which too may lay in heaven’s way, to hinder their own salvation; and I cannot pass them by, without using my endeavors to remove them. For these have been, and still are, unhappy occasions to many, or putting off all the blame from themselves, yea, obliquely, by consequence at least, to charge God himself.

In answering these objections, I am no way bound to engage the controversies that still are among the learned, nor shall I resolve one way or other to the prejudice of any party, but leave them to end their quarrels as they can.

All the business I have to do, is to apply myself to the capacities (and if the Lord so please, to resolve doubts), of those that understand nothing, or very little of these matters, more than to make them so many stumbling-blocks, to hinder, and sad occasions of blessing themselves in their own hearts, which “they walk on in their own imaginations, to add drunkenness to thirst,” [Deut. 29:19]. And now I come to particulars after I have premised this one thing in general, viz.: That the decrees of God be as absolute, as any of the learned have made them; or the death of Christ as much narrowed in the extent of it, as ever it has been by any, yet my conclusion will stand firm, that men only are wanting to themselves, and no charge in the least can justly be laid upon God. . . .

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